The request of staff for the City Council is to review and consider for approval the attached proposal from Hadronex Incorporated aka SmartCover Systems in the not to exceed amount of $66,701 for the purchase of smart sanitary sewer manhole covers. Hadronex is the sole manufacturer of the smart cover system.  This type of purchase is allowed under the City’s current purchasing guidelines. 

As City Council is aware, on May 3, 2024, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection issued the City a consent order. The consent order fined the City $30,117 in penalties.  However, if the City chose to perform an In-Kind project at the costs of one and a half times the civil penalty off-set amount, equivalent to at least $45,175.50, the Department would approve the project subsequent to their review, on May 31, 2024, the Department approved the City’s In-Kind proposed project.  The consent order was due to the City’s three (3) unauthorized discharges which entered surface waters on August 9, 2022, November 16, 2022, and December 7, 2022 totaling 71,416 gallons.  Two of the three unauthorized discharges were located near the Pithlachascotee river and the Gulf of Mexico due to sewer force-main breaks.  The third unauthorized discharge was due to the failure of an electrical breaker, resulting in the overflow of 35,916 gallons of completely treated reclaimed water at the City Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) located at 4730 Main Street, New Port Richey, Florida 34652.

The City performed remediation work at the WWTP consisted of the installation of a gate that increased the holding capacity of the tank by 112,705 gallons. In addition, the one (1) breaker that controlled the six (6) pumps was removed and replaced with six (6) individual breakers and VFD’s have been installed for each of the existing pumps. 

Subsequent to the City’s review of the two (2) unauthorized discharges into the Pithlachascotee river, the City proposed to the Department the purchase of 10 smart manhole covers to be installed at manholes preceding the 10 lift stations located adjacent to the river; please see the Exhibit “A”. The benefit of these installations will implement a backup system in place should the City’s existing SCADA system malfunction and not notify the City’s on-call personnel.  As the City Council is aware, response time to sanitary sewer overflow is critical to the elimination or reduction of wastewater into surface waters and as such, creates a direct benefit to the environment.